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When Google Paid Tribute to India’s Great Writer – Mahasweta Devi

This past Sunday on 14th January, 2018, Google paid its tribute to a great Indian literary writer and activist. On her 92nd birthday, Mahasweta Devi – the eminent Bengali littérateur was presented in a Google doodle that depicts the writer’s love for literature, education and her crusade for the rights of rural and tribal people.

Mahasweta Devi is an inspiration for millions of students who read her large number of novels and short stories in books and online learning sites. Many of these have been translated into multiple Indian languages and are used as anecdotes on Indian social networking sites.

Recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Bharatiya Jananpith Award, and the Padma Vibhushan. Mahasweta Devi is among South Asia’s most decorated authors in the field of education and literature. She passed away in July 2016 following age-related illness.

Here are 5 things students should know about her –

Fig: Mahasweta Devi’s Google Doodle on her 92nd birthday!

Having grown up partly in Rabindranath Tagore’s Santiniketan, Mahasweta Devi went on to work as an English lecturer at a Kolkata university until 1984. Here she retired to concentrate on her writing

Her first book, Jhansir Raniwas a biography of the Rani of Jhansi. Following its publication 1956, she went on to write over 100 books and twenty collections of short stories. Many GK (General Knowledge) online mock test questions are based on her writings.

She has won just about every major award for literature that India has to offer. Moreover, the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay award for journalism, literature and social activism, makes her one of the most respected cultural figures in Bengal

The people in her stories are migrant workers, the lowest of the low castes, landless labourers, poor abandoned women, tribals with no rights; and those who exploited, abused and suppressed them.

Her novels are an inspiration, not just for students of online mock test but for filmmakers as well. And, these include award-winning films like Govind Nihalani’s ‘’Hazar Chaurasi ki Ma’’ (1998), and Kalpana Lajmi Rudali.